


The Hot Guy at the Bus Stop

by deadinderry



Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: M/M, i guess it's modern it's probably modern, modern day au i guess, we decided that we're picking up a new multi-chapter bc, why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-01-29 11:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 15,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21409822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadinderry/pseuds/deadinderry
Summary: It was official.Steven was in love. [modern day au]
Relationships: Steven Adler/Izzy Stradlin
Comments: 110
Kudos: 108





	1. Steven's In Love

**Author's Note:**

> yep we're doing a multi-chaptered fic so that i stop clogging the thing with the same variation of the same thing, so now we're making it MODERN DAY and NOT JUST A ONESHOT.

It was official.

Steven was in love.

“I’m in love,” he said. Duff looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Again?”

“Yes,” Steven said. “Yes, and it’s one hundred per cent for real this time, and I’m not going to get broken up with or break up with another person and break another window.”

“Yeah, stop doing that,” Duff said. “It’s weird. Like, okay, once is an accident, but it really just seems to be your coping mechanism, which like, has to stop. What’s her name?”

“His name, and I don’t know,” Steven said. “I saw him at the bus stop, coming in, with a big suitcase, and a friend who seemed kind of angry, and he was smoking, and he looked super cool, and now I’m in love.”

“That’s great,” Duff said. “Did you get milk? We’re out of milk, and that’s why you left the house.”

Steven had not gotten milk.

* * *

The way it went was like this: Steven and Slash had gone to school together, and then they’d moved in together. And then they’d met Duff, and then the _three _of them could afford a house to rent instead of an apartment, so they each got their own room, and a bigger living room and a basement and everything. They’d been kicking around the idea of forming a band, since they all played instruments, but a drummer, a guitarist, and a ‘whatever you need him to be but probably a bassist’ did not a band make, even if the ‘whatever you need him to be’ could sing pretty well. So mostly, they just had whatever jobs they could get their hands on. Slash bartended, and Steven was a delivery driver for a local pizza place, and Duff worked at the one little book-and-record-store combination that was slowly going out of business. Steven worked mostly nights, and by that he meant, every night of the week. Duff worked from eight in the morning until six at night every day of the week. Slash just kind of.

Came and went, honestly, Steven had zero clue what his schedule was.

So it was the Tuesday after he’d first caught a glimpse of the new love of his life when he got sent on a delivery to the apartments that he’d used to live at with Slash. They were kind of out of the way—they weren’t too shitty, to be completely honest, they were just cheap _because _they were out of the way. He listened to the radio as he went, and he was having a pretty good time. And then he took the stairs three at a time, knocked on the door, and was faced with angry friend.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “I saw you and your hot friend come in on the bus a couple days ago.”

“Do you… have our pizza?” angry friend said. He had the orangest hair that Steven had _ever _seen. “On the phone they said it was gonna be twenty-five dollars.”

“Yes. Is your friend home?” Steven said. He wasn’t above holding the pizza hostage.

“Do you want a tip or not?” Angry friend was scowling, now, and Steven tried to look around him into the apartment. It looked pretty empty, to be honest. He did see a guitar.

“Hey, my friend Slash plays guitar,” Steven said. “Is it you or your friend that plays that one?”

“Is the pizza here or not?” Another voice yelled, and Steven perked up.

“Izzy, come get it from him, I think he wants to see you,” angry friend said, and he disappeared, and in a couple of minutes—

Yeah, it was the one he was in love with.

“Hi!” Steven said. He beamed—he couldn’t help it. Izzy, apparently that was the name, was coming at him, frowning, hair all messy and wearing like, the biggest t-shirt that Steven had ever seen. “I’m Steven.”

“Great,” Izzy said. “Is that the pizza? Axl, did you pay him?”

“No, he wouldn’t do anything except ask about you!”

“Motherfucker,” Izzy muttered. “How much?”

“Twenty-five even. Do you play guitar?”

“Yeah. Here, keep the change,” Izzy said, shoving a twenty and a ten at him. Grabbed the pizza and the six-pack of Coke. There was a cigarette hanging out between his fingers.

“Oh, this apartment’s no-smoking,” Steven said. “I used to live here with my friend Slash, and Slash was like always pissed about that. He had to go outside to smoke, ‘cause we got in trouble for it like eight times.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Izzy muttered. “Thanks for the pizza, Stevie.”

And he slammed the door in Steven’s face. Steven looked at it for a second. He thought that could’ve gone worse. A five dollar tip wasn’t bad, not bad at all—high end of normal, so that probably meant that this guy didn’t hate him, or anything.

And now he knew where he lived.

And his pizza order.


	2. Steven's Got a Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was coming up from the basement to get some water (the basement was where they hung out, doing prep work, while they weren’t on deliveries) when he saw him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit it's been a month. um. yeah, it's been a while, i've had this chapter half-written on my desktop for a couple weeks but i started dating my own pizza delivery driver and so he takes up some time. hopefully this isn't too shit though.

He was coming up from the basement to get some water (the basement was where they hung out, doing prep work, while they weren’t on deliveries) when he saw him.

Izzy, Hot Guy At the Bus Stop, and Orange Friend Axl—sitting in the table closest to the juke box. Number on their table—they’d decided to come in and eat instead of getting delivery, which was sad on one hand, but also—

“Can I go on break?”

“You’ve been here for ten minutes, Steven.”

“Yeah, but it’s not busy,” Steven said. He bounced a little. “I won’t complain about it later, I promise. I see some friends here and I wanna talk to them for a while.”

“Fine.” The supervisor tonight was a guy with a nose chain and long hair and a girl’s name—Steven thought he was pretty cool.

“Thanks, Rachel.”

So he filled up his cup and went and sat down beside Izzy.

“Jesus Christ,” Axl said.

“Hi!” Steven said. “What’d you order? You got pepperoni and sausage when you got delivery, extra cheese, right, is it that again?”

“No,” Izzy said. He was tapping on the table, a little; seemed to be out of nothing to do with his hands rather than nerves or restlessness. Probably, Steven figured, he wished he had a cigarette. “How long are you allowed to sit here?”

“Oh, man, Rachel said I could go on break, so you’ve got me for a whole half hour.”

“Fantastic,” Axl muttered. He stood up. “Well. I’m going to go make a phone call. Have fun, Iz.”

He walked off, pressing his phone to his ear.

“His girlfriend,” Izzy said. “He’s calling his girlfriend.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Steven asked. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, but to be honest, he probably wouldn’t have stopped them if he’d thought to anyway. He wanted to know whether he should give this up or not.

“Nope,” Izzy said. He bit down hard on his pinkie nail and then put his hands back on the table. “Sorry. Trying to quit smoking. It’s too annoying to walk downstairs and the old ladies below us have already complained like four times about me smoking on the balcony, and Axl told me if I got us evicted he’d kill me.”

“He seems like,” Steven said, and he tried to find a nice word but could only come up with, “a dick.”

Izzy snorted. “Yeah, he kind of is,” he said. “Known him for a while, though. He’s a good guy, deep down. I think. What about you? You got a girlfriend?”

“No,” Steven said. He opened his mouth again, and then one of the counter girls brought over Izzy’s pizza and raised an eyebrow at Steven. “I’m on break, it’s okay.”

It wasn’t pepperoni and sausage—it was an all-meat with extra cheese.

“Can I—”

“Go ahead, Axl’ll be pissed but I don’t care,” Izzy said, and Steven grabbed a piece. He whacked it against Izzy’s piece like they were toasting something—what, Steven didn’t know, probably the fact that they were both single, or something, and Izzy snorted, a little. “God, you’re a weird one.”

“Yeah, that’s what Duff says,” Steven said. “He’s one of my roommates. Him and Slash. Hey, I get off at ten-thirty, do you wanna come over?”

* * *

Amazingly, Izzy had said yes. Steven hadn’t really been expecting it—ten-thirty was, like, a _little _late, especially if Izzy had a job, which Steven didn’t know if he did or not, but Izzy had said yes. He’d then said, “Well, I’ll probably be closer to midnight,” and now Steven was trying to convince Duff to go and buy him some booze.

“Why can’t you do it?”

“Because I lost my driver’s license and they card me every time even though they know me by now.”

“You lost your—Steven, you _drive _for a _living_.”

“Please, Duff. I’ll give you all the tip money I made tonight.” Granted, it had been a slow night and he’d gotten like, twelve dollars in cash tips, but, still, he figured it might sweeten the deal for Duff at least a little. “I want him to _like _me, and if he comes and I don’t have any _booze _he’s gonna think I’m _lame_.”

“You are lame,” Duff said. He grabbed the tips from Steven’s outstretched hand and frowned at them. “This won’t be enough to cover anything but like, the cheapest bottle of rum they have.”

“Well, do that, then,” Steven said. Duff sighed, but Steven figured that he had him now, so all he had to do was say, “_Please, Duff, please, Duff—_” over and over and over again until Duff said—

“Fucking fine,” Duff muttered, and he stalked out, and Steven got to (a) showering and (b) at least picking up everyone’s dirty laundry and making sure that Slash’s pet snake wasn’t going to slither out of some weird crevice and freak them all the fuck out, because that _had _happened before, and it was pretty awful when it came to when they had dates over, because even _Slash’s _dates had really zero clue that Slash’s ‘liking for snakes’ meant ‘yes, he has a giant snake, and sometimes it just sort of slithers around the house, no matter how many times Duff tells Slash that giant snakes like to eat their owners’.

He caught his reflection in the mirror and had to stop, a little. He’d never changed out of his pizza shirt. He’d never changed out of his pizza shirt, his hair was still tied back, and he had—

“Fucking forty minutes,” Steven muttered. He shook his hair out and went to go and see if he could find a suitably cool t-shirt to wear—he sure as hell didn’t have one, but maybe Duff wouldn’t mind if he stole something. Duff always looked so fucking cool. And if there was one vibe that Steven was getting from Izzy Stradlin, it was cool.


	3. Steven's Frustrated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At twelve-fifteen (so, late enough for Steven to kind of freak out and think that Izzy wasn’t going to come, but not so late that it was actually a dick move) there was a knock on the door and Steven jerked to his feet. Duff, who had been watching Steven’s slow descent into a nervous wreck, raised an eyebrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, not quite so long of a wait this time!

At twelve-fifteen (so, late enough for Steven to kind of freak out and think that Izzy wasn’t going to come, but not so late that it was actually a dick move) there was a knock on the door and Steven jerked to his feet. Duff, who had been watching Steven’s slow descent into a nervous wreck, raised an eyebrow.

“Go to your room,” Steven said, but his mouth was moving so fast and his words were coming out in such a jumble that he wasn’t even a hundred per cent sure that _he _understood them. He didn’t wait around to see if Duff listened to him, either; he just tripped over himself running to the door. He yanked it open, a little breathless, to see Izzy leaning against the house next to the door, smoking a cigarette with a paper bag in one hand. “I thought you were trying to quit smoking?”

“Shit,” Izzy said. He shook his head. “Guess not. Do you guys care?”

“Nah, we all smoke,” Steven said. “’specially Slash. Uh, come in. Also Slash has a giant snake and it’s probably in his room but it gets out sometimes so if you see a giant snake, don’t worry about it.”

Izzy raised an eyebrow. “Okay,” he said. They stood in silence for a little bit and then Steven realized that he should probably move out of the way so that Izzy could come in, so he did. “Shoes off or on?”

“Uh, doesn’t matter.”

“Cool,” Izzy said. He left his on and held up the bag. “I brought vodka.”

“I had Duff buy rum,” Steven said. Duff appeared like some sort of giant booze fairy and snatched the bag out of Izzy’s hand. “Dude.”

“You guys drink the rum, this is my payment for buying it for you,” Duff said. “Because I _didn’t _get the cheap stuff that your tiny amount of cash would’ve covered, because I’m nice like that, and this is my payment, hi, I’m Duff, please don’t fuck on the couch, not for our sake but for yours, that thing is fucking gross.”

And he absconded.

“Okay,” Izzy said.

“That’s Duff,” Steven said. “He’s the nice one. Slash is like, the sexy one, pretty much, Slash is one of the best-looking people in the world and you’re not allowed to meet him because you’ll fall in love with him.”

“So then what are you?” Izzy said. “If Duff’s nice and Slash is sexy?”

“Uh, kind of annoying, mostly,” Steven said. He grinned and shook his head. “C’mon, let’s go drink that rum, if Duff didn’t get the cheap stuff that’s even _better_.”

* * *

They were half a bottle deep when Slash came home. “Slash!” Steven said. Izzy screwed his eyes shut. “Are you okay?”

“Said I wasn’t allowed to meet him,” Izzy muttered, and turned his face into Steven’s shoulder.

Steven felt his heart pretty much kind of explode at that. Slash raised an eyebrow. “This is Izzy, and I’m in love with him,” Steven said.

“Good for you,” Slash said. He headed for his room, and Izzy opened his eyes again. Looked Steven straight in the face. He looked like he was about to say something, and Steven was ready to die, again, when they heard a loud, “_fuck_” from the general direction of Slash. A couple minutes later, Slash was back. “Have you seen the snake?”

“No,” Steven said. “Is it out?”

“Yeah, she’s out,” Slash said.

“Fuck,” Steven said.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“How big is the snake?” Izzy said. Steven looked at him. His eyes weren’t closed this time, but he didn’t really seem to be _seeing _Slash, which was good. The only reason all of Steven’s girlfriends hadn’t left him for Slash was because Steven was more outgoing than Slash. A lot of them would _see _Slash and then want a piece of that, but Slash could be shy. Probably that wouldn’t be the case with a guy—Steven didn’t actually know how much Slash liked dudes. In like, freshman year they’d fooled around a little bit just to kind of experiment, but Steven didn’t know how Slash had felt about that.

But Izzy didn’t really seem to care that Slash was the sexiest motherfucker on the planet, so that was good.

“She’s a big one,” Slash said. He let out a long breath through his teeth and then disappeared, and Steven heard pounding. “Duff! Duff, wake up, she’s out!”

So then it was the four of them in the living room, Duff pissed off because he’d been asleep (“It’s shipment day tomorrow, asshole, I have to be at the store by six.”), Steven and Izzy a little drunk, and Slash anxious about the fucking snake. “Will it like,” Izzy said. “Eat—Steven?”

“Why me?”

“Littlest.”

“I weigh more than you,” Steven said. “Pretty sure.”

Izzy might have been taller than him, but he was skinny.

Izzy shrugged. He was still sitting on the couch, slumped into it, almost, the bottle of rum in his hands. It looked a good amount emptier than it had been when Slash had first come home.

“Okay,” Slash said. “Okay, okay. She likes under Duff’s bed, but she wasn’t there, under the kitchen sink if someone left the cabinet open, under the _couch_—” Izzy pulled his feet up. “—yeah, she could be under there. Um—”

Steven, who was feeling more and more aggravated with this situation as it dragged on, dropped to his stomach to look under the couch. It was pretty gnarly under there; lots of trash and shit that he really didn’t want to think about too hard, but no snake. “It’s not under the couch.”

“_Fuck_,” Slash said, again.

“Find the stupid thing so I can _sleep_—”

“In the couch,” Izzy said, and Steven pushed himself up to see the snake start to pull its way out of the couch—there was a hole in the back of one of the corner cushions that made it _very _easy for the snake to get into the couch, and Izzy took a long drink straight from the bottle.

“There she is,” Slash muttered, and he pulled the rest of the snake out. “Thanks. God _damn _it—” and Steven rejoined Izzy on the couch.

Izzy took another drink.

Steven took the bottle from him so that he could get some of that shit before it was gone for good. “You’re staying over, right?”

“Steven, I would fucking die if I tried to make it home,” Izzy said. “I don’t know this town yet, I’d get lost and fall in the river.”

Steven grinned, a little. He wanted to kiss Izzy, and he would’ve if Izzy hadn’t turned his face away to lean his back against Steven’s side. So Steven settled for kissing the top of his head instead. And Izzy didn’t move away or act weirded out or anything, so he counted that as a plus.


	4. Steven's Still Frustrated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning, Steven woke up on the couch with an empty rum bottle wedged under the small of his back and Izzy Stradlin’s back pressed up against one of his shoulders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dontttt know where im going w this and thats probably obvious but that's life baby

The next morning, Steven woke up on the couch with an empty rum bottle wedged under the small of his back and Izzy Stradlin’s back pressed up against one of his shoulders. He wrinkled his nose and frowned (he was forever glad that he only worked nights, because from the sun streaming in through the window, he would one hundred per cent be late for work if he was a day person) and, when he tried to move, a little, because his arm was definitely asleep, Izzy mumbled something, pushed himself up, and turned around to look. His eyes were bleary and uncomprehending.

“Pizza delivery boy.”

“Steven.”

“Right.”

Izzy paused, calculated, looked around, and eventually said:

“Was there a giant snake somewhere last night, or did I make that up?”

* * *

Steven said good-bye to Izzy with a lot less kissing than he wanted to—pretty much, Izzy pushed himself to his feet, blinked a couple of times, asked after a bathroom, puked once, and headed for the door. He had said, “see you soon,” which could either mean that he was planning on ordering a pizza soon or being polite or actually did want to see Steven soon, Steven didn’t know—but either way, Steven hadn’t ended a date without at least _kissing_ his date (_especially _if there was booze involved) in like, ten years. It was more frustrating than that stupid snake ruining his night.

He said the same to Slash, as Slash dug around for something to eat and came up with a stale brown sugar poptart.

“You ruined my date.”

“You had a date?”

“Izzy.”

“Oh, the dude who found my snake?”

“Yeah,” Steven said. “And because of your stupid snake and Duff’s stupid rum, I didn’t get to do—we didn’t get to—not even a _kiss_, Slash. I didn’t even _kiss _him.”

“Did he know it was a date?” Slash asked.

“I think so,” Steven said. He didn’t know if he’d actually called it a date, but he’d asked if Izzy was seeing anyone, and then he’d asked him to come over, to hang out, which he figured Izzy would get would mean that it was a date. And Izzy had brought booze—but that could—“Shit, he might—I’m pretty sure I used the word date at work, though.”

“Lame,” Slash said. The poptart fell apart in his hands. “We need groceries.”

* * *

Since Duff was already at work, it fell on Slash and Steven to go grocery shopping. This was never good, because neither of them really had any idea what they should get—even Duff was pretty bad, but at least he knew where everything was in the store. At least, everything they would eat—pasta and chicken nuggets and poptarts and stuff like that. “I wish I could make eggs,” Steven said. “Look how cheap those motherfuckers are. That’s like. Ninety cents for _twelve _of them.”

“It can’t be that hard,” Slash said. He grabbed a dozen and put it in the cart. They’d found their way back to the egg and dairy section pretty much by mistake, but they were making the most of it. They’d already found some cheese, so that was pretty cool. “Where are the poptarts?”

“I don’t _know_, normally I only come in here for cigarettes,” Steven muttered.

“Me too,” Slash said.

“Aisle four,” a voice said behind them, Steven jumped, and there he was: his angel, his junky-skinny-prince, his—

It was Izzy, wearing the grocery store uniform.

“Whoa, you work here?” Steven said.

“Yeah,” Izzy said. “Living the dream.”

“I’m a pizza delivery boy, dude, I’m not judging you.”

“Thanks,” Slash said, and disappeared, probably to aisle four, leaving Steven to harass his crush at work.

“We’re out of food,” Steven said. “I’ve never been this deep in this store in my life.”

Izzy laughed, a little; it was more of a snort than a laugh, really, and shook his head. “What, do you just live off of pizza or something?”

“Pretty much, I have a pretty sweet discount,” Steven said.

“Iz, I gotta—oh, this guy’s _here_, too?”

Angry friend.

Axl.

Probably Steven should stop calling him ‘angry friend’ in his head, because he didn’t really give off the vibes of someone who would be chill with that.

“Everyone needs food, Axl,” Izzy said.

Axl was also wearing a uniform.

Aw, they’d gotten jobs at the same place. Slash and Steven had used to both work at the pizza place before Slash had gotten hired at the bar, because he was a lot better at pretty much everything than Steven was so it was really no wonder the bar would take him and Steven would be stuck in the fucking pizza basement and he definitely still wasn’t bitter about it, but either way, Axl was there, Izzy was there, Steven was there, Slash was probably still loading the cart with poptarts.

“Hi,” Steven said.

“His roommate has a giant fucking snake,” Izzy said.

“Slash, yeah, he’s picking out poptarts,” Steven said. He tried to smile at Axl, but Axl was having actually none of it. “Sorry for eating your pizza last night. Izzy said I could.”

“Yeah, and Izzy likes pissing me off,” Axl muttered. He looked like he was going to say something else, but Izzy cut in with—

“Do not make us lose our jobs again, Axl.”

And instead Axl walked off.

“Next time you should come over to my place,” Izzy said. “Axl hates snakes.”


	5. Steven's Birthday!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Steven ended up at Izzy and Axl’s apartment, though, it was his birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since it's actually steven adler's birthday today, i figured that we could just shoehorn in a birthday chapter, idk.

Before Steven ended up at Izzy and Axl’s apartment, though, it was his birthday. And Steven didn’t normally try to make that big of a deal out of his birthday, not _really_; he had been reminding Duff every day for about a week and a half leading up to it that he would really probably like that one KISS album he’d seen at Duff’s place of employment once, because it was his birthday, and that also if someone could get him a DQ ice cream cake, probably one that was personalized with ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEVEN’ on it, that would also be cool, and so when he woke up on the day of his birth and the house was completely empty he was only marginally disappointed.

Not like it could be worse than when he was actually living with his family and they happened to ignore his birthday. He’d had worse birthdays. And he’d been friends with Slash and Duff long enough to know that they didn’t really hate him (at least, that’s what he tried to keep telling himself, even when he was paranoid about it), and when he opened the fridge there was a note on the milk that said, “hbd steve !!!!]; )” so Slash hadn’t _forgotten_, he just wasn’t _there. _And Duff probably would come home tonight with the ice cream cake. And maybe even the record.

And he hadn’t _actually _expected to walk out into the kitchen with everyone there, but like, it would’ve been _nice_.

“Walk,” Steven muttered. “Going for a walk.”

So he lit a cigarette and started walking. Barely had clothes on—he was kind of lucky he’d passed out the night before fully dressed, because he was halfway down the sidewalk before he realized that he needed shoes. He was just glad that they didn’t live somewhere awful where there was like. Snow and stuff. Snow could be cool, but not when your birthday was in the middle of winter and you wanted to go and _do _stuff for it.

Maybe the birthday gods were looking out for him, though, because he made his way down to the park and he saw Izzy with a great big dog on a leash. “Holy shit!” he said.

Izzy jumped a little and glanced over. “Delivery boy.”

“Steven.”

“I know, I like ‘delivery boy,’ though,” Izzy said.

“You didn’t say you had a dog. Where was he when I delivered pizza? Does that apartment even allow pets?” Steven could feel the words spilling out of his mouth faster than he could even hope to filter them, but the combined excitement of seeing _Izzy _and _dog _was way too much. Steven was actually way more into little dogs than big dogs, but all dogs were great, all dogs were wonderful, “—can I pet him, please, Izzy, it’s my birthday.”

“Sure,” Izzy said. “He won’t bite or anything.”

“Of course he won’t,” Steven said. He put out his cigarette and crouched down and opened his arms, and the dog came straight for him. He let himself get bowled over and licked for a while, and when he opened his eyes, the dog was on top of him and Izzy was standing over him, one eyebrow quirked and his mouth in kind of a half-smirk. “Thank you.”

“Dog person, then?”

“Yeah,” Steven said. “Yeah, I love dogs. Thank you. Best birthday present.”

“So it’s seriously your birthday, then,” Izzy said.

“Yeah,” Steven said. “Woke up, everyone’s gone, decided to go for a walk.”

“Rude,” Izzy said.

“Slash left a note on the milk,” Steven said. “That was nice.”

“I guess,” Izzy said.

“What’s his name?”

“Bruno.”

“I love him.”

“Good,” Izzy said. “Axl does not. I think that’s mostly because Axl is pretty much… as much of a cat in human form as you are a dog in human form, to be completely honest. I don’t think he like, hates all dogs, but he doesn’t like this one.”

“That’s rude,” Steven said. Bruno had quit licking him so hard, but he was still situated pretty comfortably on top of Steven, and Steven had no intentions of pushing him off. “I wish Duff and Slash said we could get a dog, but none of us are like, home at consistent enough times. Like, Slash’s snake, she doesn’t require as much care as a dog. Also we couldn’t decide what kind. I like little dogs, Duff likes big dogs, Slash mostly wants another snake, and we’re renting so Duff was like, ‘if we ruin the place with animals, we’ll have to pay so much money, so’—”

“It’s your birthday, I’m buying you lunch.”

* * *

Since Izzy did have the dog, they went through the drive-thru of a local burger place and then came straight back to the park. “You are my favorite,” Steven said. “Dog. Food. Hot. Perfect.”

Izzy snorted and shook his head. “I think you’re overreacting.”

“I am _not_.”

“You definitely are,” Izzy said.

“You have a dog.”

“True.”

“You bought me food.”

“True.”

“Also you gave me some of your pizza that one time.”

“Also true, also mostly to piss off Axl.”

“You’re hot.”

“Debatable and also subjective.”

“Well, I think you are, so I’m gonna go ahead and say ‘true,’’” Steven said. “Also, did you know that I was considering that time at my place a date? Because I was. Did I say the word ‘date’ ever, or was that just in my head? I asked you over with the intentions of kissing you at the very least.”

Izzy was quiet at that, for a second, his cheeks a little colorful. “I figured, sort of,” he said. “I mean. Going in. But then the snake shit happened and we fell asleep and I started second-guessing.”

“Then can I kiss you now?” Steven said. Izzy just kind of looked at him, and since he wasn’t leaning away or saying no or getting up suddenly to take his dog and leave, Steven took that as a ‘yes’, and scooted so that they were closer (they were on one of those park benches; both of them kept dropping bits and pieces of their burgers so that Bruno could have some), and, keeping a hold on his burger so the dog wouldn’t take it, leaned over and kissed him.

Izzy tasted like cigarettes and ketchup, and it was pretty fucking great.


	6. It's Still Steven's Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So he pretty much floated home, then, after seeing Izzy and the dog and kissing Izzy and letting the dog kiss him and everything, and he was so out-of-it euphoric that he completely walked straight past Duff and the Dairy Queen cake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't mean for steven's birthday to turn into a multi-chaptered affair but it sure did. also feat more members of more bands because this is my town

So he pretty much floated home, then, after seeing Izzy and the dog and kissing Izzy and letting the dog kiss him and everything, and he was so out-of-it euphoric that he completely walked straight past Duff and the Dairy Queen cake.

“Dude,” Duff said.

Steven stumbled, a little, and turned back, and that’s when he saw Duff and the cake and a very vinyl-record-shaped-package. “Oh!” he said. “Oh, you remembered, you’re the best.”

“Have a good day or something?” Duff asked.

“Izzy has a dog.”

That was really all he had to say; he was pretty much bursting with the desire to tell Duff literally everything that had happened, down to the little speck of mustard on the corner of Izzy’s mouth, but Duff just nodded. “Got it,” he said. He held up the cake. “I have your cake, and one of the girls at the store—” There were a lot of college girls who worked with Duff part time; most of the time they also ended up coming home with him at least once, because college girls loved Duff, who was tall and punk and good-looking and also pretty cool and nice most of the time? Steven understood, he’d had a little bit of a crush on Duff when he first met him, too. “—she wrapped it for you, because she said that even though you asked specifically for this one, I couldn’t just hand it to you without wrapping it.”

“I love unwrapping presents.”

“Yeah, I know,” Duff said. “Uh, Slash said he’ll be back pretty soon, I just got a text, so we’re waiting on the cake for that, and also on the present, so—”

“Then can I call Izzy?” Steven asked. “Can him and Axl come? Oh! Oh, let’s ask like, Sebastian and stuff, too.”

“And you’re making this a party, all right,” Duff said. He shook his head. “You order pizza, then, so we can use your discount.”

* * *

An hour and a half later, the pizza was there, Slash was home, and there were a couple of their other friends—Sebastian, who was Rachel-from-work’s roommate and pretty cool, Tommy and Nikki, who were also pretty cool, and Lars, who was small and European and kind of weird but Steven could dig him. When Duff had realized that it was going to be a verifiable party he’d let Steven open his present, because they weren’t demanding presents on such a short-notice party, but anyway, all Steven was really doing was watching the door for Izzy.

Sure, he loved these guys. He loved all of these guys, even as Tommy and Nikki set fire to the couch and Duff had to run over and fix that. But he was mostly waiting for Izzy, because Izzy was who he really wanted. He’d called Izzy (because yes, he had gotten his phone number by now) and Izzy had said that he’d wrangle Axl (and maybe even Bruno!!!!) and that they’d be over before too long, but it had been an _hour and a half_.

“Your boyfriend coming?” Slash asked.

“He said so,” Steven said. “And he said he’d bring his angry roommate, too.”

“Oh, the redhead,” Slash said.

“Yeah, the redhead.” To be fair, Axl was also pretty good-looking. Just a different type from Izzy. But also to be fair, Steven pretty much thought everyone was good-looking, at least unless they were verifiably ugly; for example: everyone at this party? Abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous.

“Seems like an interesting guy—” Slash started, and then the doorbell rang and Steven was over there in two seconds flat. Nobody else bothered to use the doorbell anymore, it _had _to be them, it _had—_

“Who are you?”

“I invited friends!” Lars said, and pulled in a couple of guys that Steven didn’t one hundred per cent recognize; cute curly-haired guy, cute blond guy, cute tall redhead, not to be confused with short angry redhead.

“Hi,” the curly-haired one said. He was cute, even with a set of the most fucked-up teeth Steven had ever seen in his life. Very pretty.

“Hi,” Steven said. “I’m Steven. Uh, you’re not Izzy.”

“I brought beer,” the blond said. “And Cliff has weed.”

So Steven let them in—this was turning into an actual party, and Steven was pretty sure that Duff was going to kill him in the morning when clean-up came around, because the house was starting to get packed. Steven just hoped that nobody would call the cops on them. He didn’t want to have a house arrest bracelet again.

His phone buzzed then, and he glanced down—there he was.

“AXL DIDN’T COME, BUT I’M OUTSIDE.”


	7. Steven's Birthday Finishes, Finally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izzy was leaned up against the outside of the house, right, the cherry on his cigarette the most visible thing about him, because he was standing in the shadows the porchlight made, and Steven took one look at him and felt his heart start to explode out of his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whaaat two updates in two days what's going on here

Izzy was leaned up against the outside of the house, right, the cherry on his cigarette the most visible thing about him, because he was standing in the shadows the porchlight made, and Steven took one look at him and felt his heart start to explode out of his chest. And he _knew _it was feelings, because even though he was pretty sure Tommy had cocaine, he hadn’t _shared, _so it was probably just feelings and not substance abuse.

“Hey,” Izzy said.

“Hi,” Steven said. He practically tripped over his own feet to get next to him. Izzy offered up his cigarette and Steven took it. “Thanks. Thanks for coming, also. Thank you. I mean, like, I like everyone in there, don’t get me wrong, I love all of them, even the three guys that Lars invited that I don’t know but that seem pretty cool, I should probably go learn who they are at some point, but like. I was waiting for you.”

As soon as he said it he felt his face turn bright red, but they were in the shadows and so Izzy probably couldn’t see it.

“You’re blushing,” Izzy said. “Either that or you’re fucking drunk.”

“Both, I think,” Steven said. Izzy laughed, a little. “Why’d Axl not come? I think Slash was looking forward to seeing him.”

Izzy blew out a long breath. “Long story. He’s kinda fucked up. Axl, I mean, not Slash, I don’t know Slash enough to tell if he is or not—”

“I mean, he has a giant snake—”

“True, I guess. I mean, I’m not gonna air all of Axl’s dirty laundry for you, because he definitely wouldn’t appreciate that, but he just… it’s not a good night for him, right? He probly woulda come otherwise. Nothin’ to do with you.”

“I mean, I got the feeling that he like,” Steven said. “Doesn’t like me.”

“I mean, not really,” Izzy said. “But again, nothing against you. Axl has a weird set of criteria for how he feels about people and I think the only reason I’m acceptable is because I’ve known him since we were like, fourteen.”

“Oh, just like me and Slash!” Steven said. “We were best friends in middle school, and high school, and then when neither of us went to college we just moved in together.”

Izzy cracked a little grin and nodded.

“Do you wanna come in?” Steven asked. “I can introduce you to my friends and whoever my friends have invited.”

* * *

After introducing Izzy to everyone, and learning the names of the guys that Lars had invited (Kirk was curly, James was blond, Cliff was red), Steven was hit with a weird feeling. It was a feeling that he hadn’t really remembered feeling… maybe ever. It was that he would rather be alone with one person than stay here with everyone. And so after introducing Izzy to everyone and feeling extremely insecure and jealous when Sebastian looked at him too long, he grabbed Izzy by the hand and pulled him up to his bedroom.

His bedroom, which housed: a lot of KISS posters, his kit, and clothes all over the floor. “You really like KISS.”

“Oh, man, I love KISS,” Steven said. He glanced at his bed and gauged how clean that was, and how much he was really prepared to have Izzy sit on it, and while he was doing the mental math Izzy just went and sat on it anyway, and Steven was reminded that while Izzy was beautiful he was also, like, a guy, and his bed was also probably disgusting, so he should stop running through this mental loop and just go sit by him.

Which he did.

“So, why’d you spirit me away from all your friends?”

“Uh,” Steven said. “Because they’re all a lot better-looking than me and I got jealous.”

Which was mostly the truth, even if he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Izzy raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Yeah, you were there, Sebastian was giving you the _eyes _and Sebastian’s like, beautiful.”

“Delivery boy, even if I _wanted _to hook up with any of those guys down there, do you really think that they’re going to go for a skinny anemic-looking kid they’ve never met over, say, your roommates?”

This was a good point, especially on the Slash front, but Steven really thought that Izzy was underselling how pretty he was. He said this, too.

“If I am, you are too,” Izzy said. He’d found a bottle somewhere and he was drinking out of it, his cigarette in the other hand. “Steven—what’s your last name?”

“Adler.”

“Steven Adler, you are sunshine made human,” Izzy said. Steven could feel his face getting hot again and opened his mouth, but Izzy raised the hand with the bottle, took another drink, and continued. “I did not move here to find a relationship. I’ve never been one to go looking. If it happens, it happens. And you made it happen, and I’m not upset about it, and you don’t need to worry about other people being better-looking than you.”

“Oh,” Steven said. Feeling like it was necessary, he launched himself at Izzy, pushing him back onto the pillow. He felt the bottle spill over his shoulder. “Shit. Sorry. You’re the moon, then.”

“Huh?”

“If I’m sunshine, you’re the moon,” Steven said. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked down at Izzy. He could feel his heart beating. He could feel Izzy’s too. “All cool and quiet.”

Then he kissed Izzy Stradlin for the second time and this time tasted booze and cigarettes and between that and the music coming from downstairs his heart was full.


	8. Steven Doesn't Have Rent Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Guess what.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh-so-dialogue heavy

“Guess what.”

Duff looked up. He was balancing his checkbook. “You have your third of the rent?”

“No. Uh. Check back with me tonight after I get my credit card tips with my check. No. I’m in love.”

“I know, you told us this before you even knew the guy’s name,” Duff said. “How close are you to making rent?”

“Super close, shut up. No. What I’m getting at. Me and Izzy. He came last night.”

“I saw him, he said hi.”

Steven had no clue when Izzy had found the time to say hi to everyone, probably it was while Steven was learning the names of Lars’s three friends, because they were distracting, so probably that was when Izzy had snuck off to say hi to Duff and Slash and the people that he knew. “And, so, I’m in love.”

“Again, this is not new news,” Duff said. “You said this before, dude.”

Steven, who was feeling giddy but not quite sure how to express himself beyond ‘I’m in love’, bounced on the balls of his feet and didn’t say anything. He wanted to say _everything_—he wanted to say how good Izzy looked standing outside, waiting for Steven. He wanted to say how good kissing Izzy was. He wanted to say how good Izzy had been at making Steven feel less insecure about his importance—something that both Duff and Slash knew was like, a big thing for Steven.

“But, like—” Steven said.

“Steven,” Duff said. He dropped his pen and looked Steven straight in the face. “I am happy for you. Really. Izzy seems great. I’m glad you like him so much. But please, for the love of God, get me your third of the rent.”

* * *

That night, in addition to getting his credit card tips out of his check, Steven got to deliver to Izzy and Axl’s apartment again. He was pretty giddy as he headed up—whistling, skipping, the whole nine yards. It was free pop day, so he had six cans of Dr. Pepper as well as the large Canadian bacon pizza, and he was pretty sure that the sheer amount of jostling these cans were going through was going to make them explode, but he’d seen the ticket with the address on the line and so he’d bribed the other driver for the night to let him take it, and he hadn’t seen Izzy in almost a full twenty-four hours, and he was—

Excited, to say the least.

He knocked on the apartment door after taking the steps three at a time, and was faced with Axl Rose, scowling hardcore. “Uh—” Steven said. “Twenty-one seventy. Is Izzy—”

“No,” Axl said.

“Oh,” Steven said. He deflated and then re-checked the ticket. Yeah, the name said ‘AXEL’, not ‘IZZY.’

“I can eat pizza by myself,” Axl said.

“Yeah,” Steven said. “Just hoping to. See him. Too bad you couldn’t come to my birthday yesterday.”

“Whatever. That pizza’s getting cold,” Axl said.

“Why don’t you like me? Also you have to pay.”

Axl handed over a twenty and a five. “Keep the change. I don’t like how you’ve latched onto Izzy like that, because it’s creepy.”

“Thanks. Is the dog in there? I liked him, too. And it’s not creepy, I love him.”

“You’ve known him for like, two weeks, tops.”

“Well, he’s cool,” Steven said. “Here’s your free pop.”

“Thanks. I know he’s cool, he’s my best friend. And let me tell you, pizza boy,” Axl said. “If you hurt him at _all_, I’m burning that fucking restaurant to the ground. That’s a promise.”

And Axl slammed the door in his face.

At least he’d tipped all right.


	9. Steven Has Roommate Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing with Izzy Stradlin, Steven was learning, was that he always looked completely baffled at how excited Steven always got at seeing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> w e l c o m e to the part of the fic where i have zero fucking clue where i'm going with it so w e g e t t o s e e

The thing with Izzy Stradlin, Steven was learning, was that he always looked completely baffled at how excited Steven always got at seeing him. Seriously—Steven was fucking pumped to see him, all the time, and Izzy always got this funky look on his face, like he wasn’t sure why Steven was beaming so huge. It was kind of cute but also kind of sad; Steven didn’t know why everyone didn’t look at Izzy like this, all the time, because when he looked at Izzy all he saw was ‘holy shit the prettiest person in the world.’

They were walking the dog. Izzy had stopped by that morning, at about ten or so, and Steven had practically jumped through the window when he’d seen not only Izzy, but Bruno outside. Slash had yelled at him for making so much noise, but Steven didn’t care, because ‘Izzy’ and ‘dog.’

“Axl said if I make you sad he’s burning the pizza place to the ground.”

“Jesus Christ,” Izzy muttered. He ran a hand through his hair, paused, then ran both hands through his hair. Steven had the leash, which freed Izzy’s hands up to make exasperated hand gestures and hold cigarettes, both of which he did frequently. “Jesus Christ. When did you see Axl?”

“Delivered a pizza to him,” Steven said. “He tipped decent.”

“Good,” Izzy said. He shook his head. “Even if you do make me sad, it’s fine, because I’m an adult.”

“I don’t want to make you sad.”

“Well, that’s good,” Izzy said. He shook his head. “I’m fucking sorry about him, though, he’s exhausting sometimes. I love the guy, but he’s. A problem, sometimes. He’s like the anti-you, pretty much.”

Steven had an idea that Duff and Slash would say the same thing about him: ‘exhausting, a problem, (hopefully) love the guy.’ So he was sympathetic, at least. “I mean, he seems all right,” Steven said. “I mean, for someone who seems like a dick.”

Izzy snorted and lit a cigarette. “Right,” he said. “Don’t let him scare you off.”

“I’m not gonna let anyone push me around,” Steven said. “Especially not a guy like that.”

“Good,” Izzy said. He cleared his throat. “You wanna stop for ice cream?”

* * *

So after ice cream and hugging the dog so much that Steven had an idea that he was going to smell like dog for the next ten years, Steven and Izzy parted ways. Steven was, again, pretty much whistling as he went home. There was something about being around Izzy that just made him ridiculously happy. He’d had girlfriends before, and while he’d never actually had a straight-up _boyfriend _before he’d had… boys who he like, made out with and stuff before, but none of them had made him this happy, ever. It was enough that he didn’t even notice the car out front that wasn’t normally out front, because it wasn’t any of their cars, and he didn’t notice any of it until he walked into the kitchen and there was Axl Rose and Slash.

“What the fuck,” Axl said.

“What the fuck, this is my house.”

“Your roommate is the dipshit who keeps following Izzy around like a puppy?”

“Didn’t you know this?” Slash said. “I knew that you were Izzy’s roommate. Steven never fucking shuts up about what’s happening in his life. Also we saw you at the grocery store that one time.”

“Izzy didn’t mention any of his dipshit’s roommates, and for all I fucking knew you could’ve just been friends,” Axl snapped. He shook his head. “This is fantastic.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Steven said. He frowned. He honestly didn’t know any legitimate reason that Axl could have that would make him dislike Steven so much—Steven liked being liked, you know, like most people did, but Steven couldn’t even brush it off like some people could. It ate _away _at him when someone didn’t like him, made him doubt if _anyone _liked him at all, and—

It was a bad deal, to put it simply.

“Don’t bother with Steven, do you want to see my snake?”

“What—_no, _that sounds awful—”

So Steven left them to it. He didn’t know what Slash’s deal with Axl was, or what he wanted out of it, and he wished that Duff was back from work—maybe the solution here was to go and visit Duff at work, which might be nice, because he had gotten the rent money to Duff yesterday, and so now he had a little bit of extra cash, and so he could go and see if there were any cool records he didn’t have, except that would require going back through the kitchen, unless he went out a back window—

And so when Duff got home at six, Steven already an hour and a half late for work, he came home to Steven, stuck halfway in and halfway out of one of the basement windows, because Slash and Axl had turned on music as loud as humanly possible to drown out any other noise, which probably meant that they were fucking, or something, Steven didn’t know, all he knew was that Rachel was going to be _pissed _at him for missing work like that.


	10. Steven Gets Fired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So the gist of the matter was, he was fired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do i know where this is going? no!

So the gist of the matter was, he was fired.

“I missed work once,” Steven said.

“Once this week,” Rachel said. “Once this week.”

“You are not my boss, and you can’t fire me—”

“Yes, but the boss is who told me to fire you, because he hates firing people, and so he makes me do it, and that’s why I got the promotion, so that I can fire people,” Rachel said. “Seriously, Steven. You’re always late, and I recently learned that you do not have a driver’s license, which is a problem, because driving is your _job_.”

“Plenty of people drive here with a suspended license,” Steven said. It was a true statement; a good half of the delivery drivers at any point in time had a suspended license, whether that be for DUI’s or whatever.

“Who?”

“Uh,” Steven said. He had an idea that Rachel was in the ‘I know but am just ignoring it until they do something else to make me need to fire them’ camp, but he didn’t exactly want to rat out his bros like that. “I dunno.”

Rachel rolled his eyes. “Okay. We’ll mail your last check to you.”

“Can I get one last pizza on discount?”

* * *

Since Rachel wasn’t actually the biggest asshole on the planet, he did let Steven buy one last pizza on discount. So Steven got himself a large pizza in his favorite kind, which pretty much meant ‘pile everything on the pizza you can manage’, and he also grabbed a pint of ice cream, and again, since Rachel wasn’t the biggest asshole on the planet, he just looked the other way while Steven pretty much straight-up stole it.

So Steven took his pizza and his ice cream, walked two blocks, and stopped short.

He didn’t know where to go. His first instinct had been ‘home’, but Slash was there, and he didn’t exactly want to explain to Slash his current state of emotionally eating pizza and ice cream because he’d just got canned because then Slash would tell Duff and Duff would want him to get another job like, _immediately_, and while Steven knew he had to go and get another job, he’d rather like, give himself a night to wallow, but Duff would say things like ‘bills’ and ‘rent’ and ‘this time we might kick you out,’ which would make Steven feel straight-up _awful_, and so—

Pretty much before he realized he was doing it, he’d called Izzy.

“Are you busy?” he asked.

“Nothing I can’t skip out on. Why?”

“Can you meet me in the park?”

* * *

So Izzy met him in the park, and he was wearing his work clothes. “Oh, shit,” Steven said. “Were you at work?”

“Yeah, but I don’t actually give that much of a shit,” Izzy said. He’d turned his work hat around backwards and was sitting on a picnic table, blowing smoke rings. Steven was sharing his pizza. “Like, if they fire me, I’ll get another shitty job, rinse and repeat, until I run out of jobs and we have to move again.”

Steven had an idea ‘we’ meant ‘Izzy and Axl’, and the thought of Izzy moving again made Steven a little panicky deep in his chest, but he tried to ignore it as much as he could. “Right,” he said. “Duff and Slash will never want to just pick up and move though when I burn my way through jobs, because they can like, _hold _them. Especially Duff. Slash can get a little iffy sometimes.”

“Yeah, that’s why you gotta hook up with someone just as chaotic as you,” Izzy said.

Steven laughed, a little, and looked down at his knees. He knew it was dumb, but Izzy talking like this—like, yeah, him and Steven were making out and technically maybe probably dating, but Izzy and Axl were tied together in a way that Izzy and Steven would have to work on each other for _years _before they could get even close to it. Romantic conquests might have been on the table for them, but they were soul mates in the most basic way.

“But who knows,” Izzy said. He leveled Steven with a look. “Maybe this time I got something to stick around for. “


	11. Steven Looks For a New Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like Steven had figured, Duff was absolutely pissed about him losing his job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh--one little thing, going forward, I did self-publish one of my original works and it is available on Amazon, so if you'd like to support your local pizza place worker whose hours are getting cut due to pandemic reasons, it's Iscariot by Aurora Dimitre https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086BJMB7N/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i1 - it's available in kindle or paperback, tho with Amazon de-prioritizing paperback, Kindle might be your best bet, also the Kindle's only 99 cents so! But enjoy.

Like Steven had figured, Duff was absolutely pissed about him losing his job.

“What the _fuck_, Steven?” Duff said. “Who the hell do you think is going to hire you? They put up with so much shit from you there. Showing up late, not showing up at all, never finding someone to replace you when you couldn’t make it, the fact that you’ve got a suspended license—”

“I get it, Duff,” Steven said. “I know. I know. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon.”

“Like hell you have, you’ve been binge-eating your sadness away so you don’t have to think about it,” Duff said. “And you would be binge-drinking it away if you knew where your ID was.”

Steven didn’t really have much to say about that, seeing as it was completely true. So instead he just hunched his shoulders and waited for it to be over, like a little kid getting chewed out by the principal.

And Duff made a good principal.

“Seriously, Steve,” he said. “We have rent due. We have bills. Me and Slash can’t carry you forever.”

“Are you kicking me out?” Steven asked. He didn’t mean for it to come out as pathetic as it did—even to his ears he hated it, all weak and cracking on the last word.

Duff gave him a long look—he was actually quiet enough that Steven looked up at met his eyes, and all he was doing was looking at him. “No,” Duff said. “Not—not yet. I mean—I’ll give you time to find a job. But you gotta _try_, dude. No just—no just messing around, all right? You gotta at least try.”

* * *

Maybe it was a dumb idea, but Steven figured, if the grocery store would hire Izzy and Axl, they would also hire him, because Izzy didn’t seem to be the most dedicated worker, and Axl was a whole problem and a half on his own, so probably a former delivery driver would not be off the table for being hired. So he went and nabbed an application from the girl at the customer support desk, filled it out right there, handed it back, and then it was waiting.

To tell the truth, Steven did not hate waiting to hear back from job prospects. He’d put in an application, so Duff couldn’t yell at him for not doing anything, but he wasn’t actually required to do jack shit. It was kind of nice, in a way. He kept his phone charged, made sure to keep his phone charged and on him, unless he didn’t want to be bothered in which case he figured that if they really wanted to talk to him, they could leave a voice mail (he did make sure to set up his voice mail box, which had not been set up beforehand—if anyone at the pizza place had needed him and he didn’t answer his phone, they knew to text him).

So he was without his phone when he ran into Izzy next.

“I applied at the grocery store you work at,” he said.

Izzy laughed long and loud at that. “Oh shit,” he said. “Axl is going to be so pissed off.”

Steven hadn’t thought about Axl.

“Oh, no,” he said.

“Well, he can get over himself, I’m not mad at you or anything,” Izzy said. “Like, he’s gotta learn to get over himself at some point anyway, it might as well be with the kid he doesn’t really like all that much—” which did hurt Steven, deep in his soul, he didn’t like not being liked. “—showing up at his job, because let me tell you, that place takes anyone. Axl normally has problems, because he did some time when we were younger—”

Steven very briefly wondered what Axl had been in jail for and decided not to ask.

“—not that he’s like, an actual menace to society, but if you have to check the ‘felon’ box most places won’t hire you, and I didn’t show up to the interview on time, and they still hired both of us, so I’m sure you’ll get it.”

“I hope so,” Steven said. “I thought Duff was about ready to kick me out when he found out. I didn’t even tell him. Rachel called him and told him.”

“What kind of dick move is that?”

“I dunno,” Steven said. He hugged his legs to his chest. “He did say that if Duff ordered pizza Rachel would give him his discount, though, so at least he’s not that much of a dick. We’re still getting good discounts on pizza.”

“There’s that,” Izzy said. He shook his head. “Man. Strange times we live in. Hey, Axl’s out for the weekend, what do you say you stay over at the apartment the next few days? Get you outta there for a bit?”

Steven didn’t even have to think about it.

“Fuck yeah,” he said. He grinned, and Izzy glanced away, turning a little red. “I gotta go pack some shit. See you in a few?”


	12. Steven's Sleepover, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it was dumb, but Steven’s heart was beating about a thousand miles a second as he scaled the stairs up to Izzy and Axl’s apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i... apologize for the ending here

Maybe it was dumb, but Steven’s heart was beating about a thousand miles a second as he scaled the stairs up to Izzy and Axl’s apartment. He hadn’t stopped to question whether it was weird that he knew where they lived—he’d delivered pizzas to them, so it wasn’t weird, right? Izzy hadn’t suggested giving up the address, so Steven figured that Izzy figured that Steven remembered where he lived, and then he was knocking on the door and he heard barking.

“God damn it, Bruno, get out of the way,” he heard Izzy mutter through the door, and then the door was open and Steven was on his back in the hallway and a dog was on top of him, licking his face.

“Bruno!” Steven cheered. His backpack was slowly getting crushed beneath him, and he was briefly concerned about the UV he’d shoved in there, but he’d packed enough clothes around it, and also he hadn’t heard anything shatter, so it was probably fine. He threw his arms around the dog’s neck and let it lick his face. “I love your dog.”

“I know,” Izzy said. “Bruno, come on. Inside. We’ll go out later.”

The dog gave Steven’s face one more giant lick and then bounded back into the apartment. Izzy eased the door shut (probably to prevent the dog escaping, or getting back on top of Steven, which Steven would not be upset about, and then he was standing there. Maybe cheap apartment hallway lighting wasn’t the best lighting in the world, but Izzy sure as hell looked beautiful.

He held down a hand—the other one was holding a cigarette.

“N o-smoking apartment,” Steven said.

“I know.”

Steven took Izzy’s hand, and Izzy pulled him up.

“I gave up on quitting,” Izzy said. “No-pet apartment, too, by the way.”

“You’re gonna get evicted.”

“Maybe, maybe,” Izzy said. He still hadn’t let go of Steven’s hand, and Steven felt a rush of happiness and love so intense that he had to beam as big as his face would let him or he’d probably throw up. Izzy just looked at him, that kind of weird half-smile playing across his lips, and Steven needed to get him back into his apartment and undressed before he actually exploded.

So that’s what he did.

* * *

The apartment was two-bedroom. Steven knew this from when him and Slash had lived there—two bedrooms, decent sized living room, all right kitchen, bathroom. “Which room’s yours?” Steven asked, and Izzy pointed down the hall. Directly across from the bathroom. Smaller bedroom. Steven propelled him in, nearly tripping over the dog, whose tail was wagging in the kind of way that leaves a bruise if you let it whack you, and shut the door behind them.

Izzy’s room was messy, cozy, and smelled like cigarette smoke even though the window was open. Mattress on the floor, tons of blankets and pillows. Guitars and old copies of Guitar World. A record player. Vinyl records.

Steven took it all in and then propelled Izzy directly onto his mattress.

“Lemme put out my cigarette—” Izzy started, and then Steven was on top of him and kissing him. Izzy made a weird little noise in the back of his throat, and Steven backed off enough so that Izzy could talk. “Don’t wanna burn down the place.”

Steven nodded, and Izzy leaned forward and then the cigarette was gone and Izzy’s hands were on the backs of his thighs. Izzy was shaking, a little, like he hadn’t expected it, which was weird, because it wasn’t like Steven had never kissed him before. Steven was an enthusiastic kisser: every part of the body deserved kisses, and if there was any sort of give, that part of the body also deserved to have a tongue involved. But they were both fully clothed. Steven’s hands on Izzy’s face, Steven’s knees on either side of Izzy’s hips, Steven’s mouth on Izzy’s.

Izzy’s hands gripping his legs so tight it felt like they’d leave marks.

Steven broke off again. “Axl’s for sure gone? For sure for sure?”

“I think so,” Izzy said.

“Bruno will be okay?”

“He’ll be fine.”

“We’ll take him for a walk later,” Steven said, and then he brought his face down again.


	13. Steven's Sleepover, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’d taken Bruno on a walk, and now they were back in the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> introspective and sad!steven. next chapter we get back to fluffy.

They’d taken Bruno on a walk, and now they were back in the apartment. Izzy had some Zeppelin playing and they were drinking the UV that Steven had brought—UV blue and Mountain Dew Voltage. It was an art, mixing the various different flavors of UV vodka with different kinds of pop, but Steven had settled in on blue and Mountain Dew Voltage. White cake and Fanta Strawberry wasn’t awful, either—but it was very sweet. Very very sweet.

This stuff was a little less tooth-rotting.

Well, not literally, it was still pop and flavored vodka, but—

You get it.

“So, what’re you gonna do if you can’t find a job?” Izzy asked. “Are you gonna still be able to live with Slash and Duff?”

“I dunno,” Steven said. He shook his head. “I—I feel like they’re just looking for a reason to kick me out, because they’re probably sick of me at this point, and—”

“Whoa, dude,” Izzy said. “Where’d that come from?”

“Slash is never home,” Steven said. “And Duff’s always fucking lecturing me, like he’s my mom or something. Neither of them ever wanna do anything _fun _anymore. I feel like I’m just like, in the way? And Christ, it’s gonna get worse if they ever get girlfriends or boyfriends or whatever, because they’ve _had _them before and they’re always going after them and never spending any time with me.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” Izzy asked.

“No, they don’t want me to spend time with them.”

Izzy grimaced. “Ouch,” he said. Bruno padded in and curled up on the floor right in front of the mattress. Izzy reached out one foot and rested it on top of him. “Well, if it makes you feel better, if they kick you out, you can come live with me.”

“What about Axl?”

“Oh, he’d hate it,” Izzy said. “Lucky for you, though, I don’t give a fuck.”

* * *

Three in the morning. Izzy was asleep. After they’d talked about Steven’s abandonment issues and everything, they’d drunk a little more and smoked a little pot and made out for a while, and then they’d just collapsed onto Izzy’s mattress on the floor. Izzy had passed out almost immediately, but Steven took a little while longer. Steven wasn’t a sleeper by nature—there was just so much to fucking _do_, and he didn’t have time to waste _sleeping_. He wanted to be playing the drums and listening to records and smoking pot and drinking and meeting people and it was normally all right, but when he was lying on his side on a mattress on the floor in Izzy Stradlin’s bedroom, Izzy’s face pressed into his back and Izzy’s arm thrown over his stomach, he just wished he could just.

Sleep.

He very carefully wriggled his way out of Izzy’s grip and headed for the balcony. He gave Bruno a little pat on the head as he walked past him, and eased open the door. Izzy, thankfully, was either a naturally heavy sleeper, or drunk enough to be a heavy sleeper, because he didn’t even stir.

Steven closed the door behind him.

To be completely honest, he was half-expecting Axl to be sitting on the couch with a glass of bourbon, or something, ready to absolutely tear him a new one for corrupting his roommate and probably best friend? But there was no Axl. Steven did grab a leftover piece of pizza from the fridge and then went and eased open the door to the balcony.

Their screen door was a little broken, but he could muscle it open. They didn’t have any furniture on the balcony (which was fair—Steven and Slash hadn’t had any when they’d lived here, either), so Steven sat on the wood. He kept the screen door open so that he wouldn’t be trapped outside, because with how sticky that door had been getting open, he figured it would be even stickier going closed again.

The pizza was good, but being alone with his thoughts wasn’t. Normally booze and pot would sort of tamp everything down, but it was harder when you were alone. And yeah, Izzy was asleep just a couple rooms away, but someone being with you and asleep was a lot different than someone being with you and awake. Sleeping people couldn’t distract you like conscious people could. It was just a fact.

Saying that out loud to Izzy, that he thought that Duff and Slash were getting sick of him and wanted to kick him out, made it just all the more real. He guessed he’d been thinking this for a while now; god knew he’d figured Slash had steadily been getting sick of him since fucking middle school, but now that he’d said it out loud to someone, it made him think of all the times he’d been ignored, or uninvited, or forgotten about—it sucked. And it made him wonder where their tipping point was.

He wrapped his arms around his knees and looked up at the stars.

Hopefully their tipping point was a little ways down the road.

Hopefully he’d at least be able to get Axl to tolerate him before they kicked him out.


	14. Steven's Sleepover, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven must have fallen asleep outside, because the next thing he knew, a dog was on top of him and he was freezing cold and covered in a light morning mist of dew and also he could hear the record player again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helloooo i don't know where this is goingggg

Steven must have fallen asleep outside, because the next thing he knew, a dog was on top of him and he was freezing cold and covered in a light morning mist of dew and also he could hear the record player again?

He blinked and rubbed at his eyes before opening them. Yeah, he’d fallen asleep on the balcony, with the door still open. Steven felt a little shitty about that, but he would’ve felt shittier if he thought that Izzy cared like, at all. Would bugs get in? Definitely. But probably Izzy had left the door wide open before, and probably wouldn’t say anything.

Either way, though, sleeping on the wooden balcony did not do wonders for his back, so he stretched, felt and heard a long line of pops run up his spine, and headed inside. Bruno followed him, his tail thwapping against the doorway as he walked through. Steven closed the door behind him.

Now that he was inside, Steven could smell breakfast.

Like, legitimate breakfast.

Izzy’s head popped around the corner. “Hey, dude,” he said. “Where’d you go last night?”

“Balcony.”

“Okay, like, I knew that one,” Izzy said. “But why?”

Steven picked his way over discarded t-shirts and beer bottles and shrugged. “It wasn’t on purpose,” he said. “I just went out there to think and passed out.”

“Well, stop thinking,” Izzy said. He produced a Styrofoam container. “I called the Viking Room, you know, that breakfast place, they deliver, so I got some delivery for us. I hope you like biscuits and gravy, because they really fuckin’ packed this sucker.”

Steven’s stomach, to be completely honest, still felt a little bit like a raw mess of nerves, but Izzy grinning at him, his hair held back with a couple bobby pins (that was an idea: Steven just let his hair kind of do whatever it wanted, beyond putting it in a ponytail when he’d had a job, during his working hours, but it looked like Izzy could actually _see_), that made it better. “Definitely,” Steven said, and he took the Styrofoam container and a fork.

* * *

Axl came home that night. They’d spent the day wandering around, mostly with Bruno. They’d lapped the entire town, pretty much, Steven pointed out which houses ordered a lot of pizza, which houses had dogs that would probably try to eat them if they didn’t have Bruno with them, all that stuff. They stopped for energy drinks and cigarettes at the hilltop gas station, and then they stopped for ice cream cones on the way back up to Izzy’s apartment. The gnawing, awful, pukey feeling in the base of Steven’s stomach never truly went away (he was entirely too nervous about going home for that), but it quieted down. Most of the way, at least.

So after that, they’d just decided to curl up on the couch and watch horror movies; Izzy picked out the original _Halloween _and Steven picked out _Cabin Fever_. They were halfway through _Cabin Fever _when Axl came through the door.

“—and I swear to god, Iz, I’m going to _burn down that fucking building_—oh, you have. Him here.”

“Hi,” Steven said. ‘Him’ was not the worst word that Axl could have called him, so he was counting that as a half-win.

Izzy sighed and paused the movie. “Who are you mad at for rejecting you this time?”

“He didn’t _fucking _reject me, he just _pissed me off_. You, Popcorn, whatever—” it took Steven a couple seconds to realize that Axl was talking to him. “—you tell your fucking douchebag roommate that he better watch his goddam back, that—”

“Slash?” Steven asked.

“No, the blond who kicked me out of his record shop.”

“_Duff_?”

Steven had never heard of Duff getting in trouble with _anyone _before. Duff was about as calm and level-headed as you could get. Duff was the _Mom_. And not even a shitty mom.

“What the fuck ever,” Axl said. “Either way, tell him that’s no fuckin’ customer service, right?”

“Out of curiosity,” Izzy said. “What did you do to get kicked out of a record shop in the first place?”

“It’s half bookshop,” Steven said.

“Whatever,” Axl said. “Whatever, I didn’t do _shit, _at least not enough shit to get me kicked out. I had maybe a mild disagreement with another customer, but—”

“Oh, so you punched another customer in the face, got it,” Izzy said, and exchanged a semi-conspiratorial look with Steven, who really had to fight not to giggle.

“I—_no!” _

But Axl’s protestations didn’t matter. The fact that Duff had, apparently, had the balls to get in a disagreement with someone, didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was Izzy Stradlin, smiling at him like he was _in. _


	15. Steven Goes Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But he had to go home eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what up it's my birthday i'm 23 and i don't know where this story is going

But he had to go home eventually.

Izzy ended up walking him back; they took Bruno, and then they were outside of the house again. Izzy hesitated. “You gonna be cool?”

“Always,” Steven said, and Izzy nodded. “You can leave. Thanks for letting me crash at your place.”

“Anytime,” Izzy said. He hesitated, like he wanted to do something, or say something, or feel something, but then he just walked away. Bruno licked Steven about eighty times on the hand before turning and bounding after him, and Steven headed up to the house.

Duff was in the kitchen. “Where the fuck were you?”

“Izzy’s,” Steven said. “Axl’s mad at you.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have started a legitimate fucking fist fight in the shop, then,” Duff said, which Steven thought was kind of fun, that Izzy was one hundred per cent right about Axl punching someone in the face to get kicked out.

But seeing Duff was making his stomach contract again, so he closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and said, “Izzy says that if you guys kick me out I can go live with them, so if you wanna kick me out for not having a job you can, you don’t have to feel bad about making me homeless because I won’t be, and anyway, I’ve been homeless _before_, and like, I’ve had worse weeks, so—”

“Steven, shut up, we’re not kicking you out,” Duff said. “But you do need to get a job. I think Petro’s hiring.”

* * *

To be completely honest, Petro was a better job than the pizza place. For one, they paid like, way better, and even had holiday pay—Steven just walked in and asked for information on the job, and since they were slow as shit the manager on duty just sat down with him and talked to him, and so Steven left that day with an application and a little bit of hope kindling in his chest. The only downside to this was that he was no longer going to be getting discounted pizza, but everything in the gas station was discounted for him, which meant that he’d be able to buy as many energy drinks as he wanted. Which would be cool.

Petro was also near-ish to Izzy’s apartment, so Steven got to go through the fun aspect of ‘not immediately running to Izzy’s apartment and possibly annoying him because he’d literally just spent the night’, so that was great. He did, however, see one of the guys that Lars had invited to his birthday party.

He did not remember this guy’s name, if he’d ever known it. It was the curly-haired one with the fucked up teeth, though. He must have recognized Steven, too, because when Steven came near him on the sidewalk, the kid dropped his cigarette, put it out, and tipped up two fingers in a wave.

“Hey,” Steven said. “You were at my birthday party.”

“Yeah,” the kid said.

“I have no clue what your name is, just that Lars invited you.”

The kid grinned, a little; he looked a little awkward, but, you know. Cute. “Kirk,” he said. “I’m Kirk.”

“Cool,” Steven said. “You live in these apartments?”

“Yeah, me and Cliff are rooming in one of them,” Kirk said. Steven assumed that Cliff one of the other guys that Lars had invited to his party. “I saw you passed out on your balcony the other day. You live here too?”

“Uh, no,” Steven said. “My—” He did want to say boyfriend, that was the word on the tip of his tongue, but he wasn’t sure about it. “My friend, Izzy, he lives here. Him and Axl and Bruno the dog.”

“Oh, those guys,” Kirk said. “Big dog. Aren’t pets not allowed in this place?”

“Yeah, I don’t think they care,” Steven said. There was an upside and a downside to standing here talking to Kirk—the upside was that he was making a friend. The downside was that the longer he stood here the more he wanted to burst into the apartment building and find Izzy and tell him his new fun news and also probably suck on his face. “Izzy and Axl, I mean.”

“Yeah, I get that vibe from them,” Kirk said. He shifted, a little. “Hey, you know any place in this town that’s hiring?”

“Well,” Steven said. “That pizza place on Main’s looking for delivery drivers.”


	16. Steven's New Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it was a good couple of weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this entire work is me going 'what rock stars can i add that i have not yet added'

So it was a good couple of weeks.

Steven got the job at the Petro and he settled into working there. He took lots of nights and stole lots of energy drinks—he also didn’t tell Duff that he was definitely stealing energy drinks from his job, because then Duff would get pissed and be like, “Steven that’s how you get fired” and “Steven I swear to God we really will kick you out this time” and, honestly, Steven was just not up to dealing with that right now.

So he was manning the counter with another guy, funnily enough named Stephen, though his was with a ‘ph’ instead of a ‘v.’ They had a lot of the same shifts together—the Stev(ph)en shifts. It was a good time, they were getting to be good friends. Stephen also was into good music, so Steven could get along with him. It was to the point where the managers would call them ‘Adler’ and ‘Pearcy’, because otherwise they were definitely super annoying about their names being the same.

So they were just, you know, there. It was two in the morning, so they weren’t getting that much business—there was still a little, because the Petro was the only thing in town that was open twenty four hours a day, but mostly they were playing cards behind the counter. They’d started out their shifts together playing more complicated games, but they had discovered that if they just played War, it would last the entire shift and they wouldn’t have to re-deal, and Pearcy’s habit of singing “War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” every single time they had a war was kind of fun. Both because they could both get into it, but also because Pearcy had a pretty good voice. Steven was tempted to ask him if he’d join up with him, Duff, and Slash—Duff had an all right voice, too, but it was nowhere near Pearcy’s.

Pearcy was collecting the spoils of their last war when the door jingled, alerting them to a customer, and Steven was actually kinda shocked to see Duff, Slash, and some random dude he’d never seen before.

“Hey!” Steven said, hopping up and down on his toes a few times. Slash said something to the other two and then made his way over. “Who’s that?”

“Huh? Oh, Matt, he just started working at the bar a couple nights back. Cool dude. We’re thinking about moving him in.”

Steven felt his heart drop into his stomach. “So, do I need to—”

“In addition to you, Steve, stop giving me that look,” Slash said, giving Steven a nudge. “We’ve got that spare bedroom because you wanted the basement, remember? It’s just gonna make your rent cheaper, dude.”

“Oh,” Steven said. His heart lightened considerably. “Oh, cool. This is Stephen Pearcy. He’s my new best friend because we work together like every night.”

“’tsup,” Pearcy said.

Slash nodded to him, and then Duff and Matt came up, their arms loaded down with two-liters and a few frozen pizzas. “Slash said you might be moving in,” he said directly to Matt.

“This is the other roommate,” Duff said to Matt.

“’tsup, I’m Steven.”

“Matt Sorum,” Matt said, holding out a hand. Steven shook it. Pearcy started ringing up their shit. “You’re the one that got fired from the pizza place, right?”

Steven scowled, a little. “Yes,” he said.

“I went to high school with Rachel, he can be kind of a bitch,” Matt said. This made Steven feel a little better.

But still, as they walked out with their frozen pizzas and two-liters, he couldn’t help but think that he was missing out.

* * *

So the next afternoon he headed up to Izzy’s. He would’ve called first, but somewhere along the line he’d forgotten to pay his phone bill and so he didn’t currently have a working phone. So he just walked up, and he pounded on the door for about twenty minutes before Kirk stuck his head out of the door a couple doors down. “They’re out for the weekend,” he said.

“Oh,” Steven said. “Lame.” He wondered if Izzy had tried to tell him, but discovered that his phone was disconnected. That made Steven feel awful.

“Wanna hang with me and Cliff? We have weed.”

Of fucking course he wanted to hang with them, he loved weed.


	17. Steven's Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Izzy and Axl got back from whatever-the-fuck they’d been doing that weekend, Steven was ready to pounce on Izzy and tell him literally everything he’d been up to the last couple days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it has been a while! this was mostly fun for the cathartic steven outpouring of emotion, so that was great. uh, not sure how much longer we'll be going on this one, might wrap it up soon

When Izzy and Axl got back from whatever-the-fuck they’d been doing that weekend, Steven was ready to pounce on Izzy and tell him literally everything he’d been up to the last couple days. He talked about the Stev(ph)en shifts, he talked about smoking weed with Kirk and Cliff (“Seem like cool guys,” Izzy said to that one), and at the end, he slipped in that they were going to have another roommate.

“Watch yourself, Adler,” Axl, who had come into the kitchen to drink chocolate milk straight out of the carton, said. Izzy and Steven were on the kitchen counters eating corn dogs. “You make sure they don’t replace you.”

“They won’t, we have an extra bedroom,” Steven said.

And yet.

Maybe it was just a scheduling thing—but that was weird, right, because sure Steven worked a lot of nights, but so did Slash, and _so__—_

He brought it up to Duff one morning. Duff was getting up to go to work, Steven had just gotten back to the house. Duff was shrugging on his jacket, and Steven had just taken off his gas station polo and was wringing it between his hands like he was trying to strangle it to death. “Hey, Duff—”

“Huh.”

“So like—you guys aren’t like, avoiding me, are you? Because I mean, it’s like, you guys _never _wanna do anything with me anymore, and like—like, I was at Izzy’s, and Axl said something—”

“Steven, don’t be stupid,” Duff said.

That made Steven feel better for about two minutes, before the screen door slammed shut behind Duff and Steven realized that he hadn’t denied it.

* * *

So at this point, Steven was in full-on breakdown mode. Full-on, ‘I’m alone again, oh fuck, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, nobody likes me’ kind of mode. This manifested itself mostly in getting high a lot and snapping at Matt whenever he came within three feet, which Steven felt bad about every time and knew that it wasn’t going to make his friends like him more and _knew _that this was only pushing everyone away more, and so he plastered his shaky customer-service-smile on for most of the day, even when he wasn’t working.

Yeah, so Izzy saw straight through it.

They were walking Bruno—it was morning and both of them had been up all night. Izzy was chain-smoking and Steven was jittery but still clutching a Monster in his hands like his life depended on it.

Izzy took a drag and then said, almost casually, “So, you’re having an awful time.”

Steven’s head whipped around. “Huh? Who told you that?”

“Uh, the fact that you don’t sleep, you’ve lost fifteen pounds, and you are the jumpiest motherfucker I’ve ever seen,” Izzy said. They found themselves at a small alcove in the park, and Izzy ushered both Steven and Bruno inside. “C’mon. Spill.”

Though Steven never meant to burden anyone else with his problems, they all came out in a wave. He talked, and he talked, and he talked—and while this was nothing new for Steven, the fact that Izzy was _listening_, and not _wishing that he would shut the fuck up already, Steven_, _come on, nobody wants to hear this shit. _There were moments when Steven found himself trying to taper off, trying to slow down, because normally by this point—

Basically, Steven was used to anything serious coming out of his mouth being dismissed, and Izzy wasn’t doing that.

“—and I’m sorry, man, I’m just freaking out about it.”

“Why’re you apologizing?” Izzy asked. He asked this mildly, like he was asking Steven where the best gas prices were in town. “Dude, I asked.”

“I know,” Steven said. Feeling like there was nothing else to do, he tipped his head back and screamed. Straight from the diaphragm.

“Shit,” Izzy muttered.

Bruno, either because he was sick of the attention being lavished on someone else, or just one of those dogs that could sense when someone was sad, jumped up on Steven and started licking his face.

And there was nothing better than a dog licking your face to make you feel better. “Thank you,” Steven said, and kissed Bruno’s nose.

“Hey, I helped too.”

“Fine, thank you too,” Steven said and before he could second-guess anything he was doing, leaned over and kissed Izzy too. “I hope that offer of becoming a third roommate still stands, man.”


	18. Steven's Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So he stayed with Izzy and Axl for a few days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is the end! kind of abrupt, sorry.

So he stayed with Izzy and Axl for a few days. It was actually easier to get to work from their apartment, because it was closer and Steven’s car had gotten impounded. It had been just one of those things, really; he’d either left it sitting at the wrong spot or someone had spilled that he didn’t have his license and the next thing he knew he didn’t have a car anymore. And, really, since he had way too many DUI’s to even dream about seriously getting his license back, he just let it go.

He could let shit like that go.

What he couldn’t let go was the welfare check that _someone_—Duff, probably—had called on Axl and Izzy’s apartment because, one night, while him and Izzy were eating cereal (Steven was already in his polo, ready for another Stev(ph)en shift), there was a hard knock on the door. Bruno, wagging his tail wildly ran for it.

“Bruno, bedroom!” Izzy snapped, and Bruno headed for the bedroom, his tail tucked between his legs. Izzy gave Steven an apologetic look. “We trained him to do that in case someone comes to the door who’s gonna get pissed at us for having him.”

Another knock on the door.

Izzy went to answer it. Steven tagged after him and realized that he wasn’t wearing pants yet. This was also bad because on the other side of the door was a cop.

“Either you two Steven Adler?” the cop asked.

Before Steven could say anything, Izzy replied, “Who’s asking?”

“We have someone who is concerned that if a Steven Adler is not here, he may have gone off the rails,” the cop said. “This is just a simple welfare check.”

The cop’s gaze caught Steven’s nametag.

“You Steve Adler?”

“It’s Steven,” Steven said. “And you can tell Duff that I’m fine. He doesn’t want me around, anyway.”

The cop gave him a weird look, and then turned back to Izzy.

“If you don’t have a warrant, you can leave,” Izzy said. He shut the door. Steven, who had definitely dealt with the police before, was more than slightly impressed. Izzy locked the door, both the regular lock and the deadbolt and headed back to his room. He slumped down on his mattress. “Yeah, we got like, a shitton of coke in here.”

* * *

Steven was flicking pieces of receipts at Pearcy when Duff came into the gas station. Duff went straight for the counter. “Steven, you’re being stupid.”

“No, I’m flicking paper at Pearcy,” Steven said. “This is only stupid if you’re no fun.”

“The punk’s no fun,” Pearcy said. He flicked some paper back at Steven.

“Steven, you know what the hell I mean,” Duff said. “Where have you been?”

“At Izzy’s,” Steven said. “You don’t want me there. So I’m going to Izzy’s.”

“Steven, if you want to move there, you have to—you have to break the lease, you have to get your name off of there, and you have to get all your stuff out, and—”

Steven interrupted him. “So, what—you just want to kick me out? You want me to leave?”

“No, but—Steve, you’re—”

“Don’t fucking call me Steve, this isn’t a _business meeting_!” Steven’s voice rose, and the few customers (it was, after all, about two in the morning) glanced over to the registers. “You just said you wanted me to leave. You just said you wanted me to get my stuff and get my name off the lease and move in with Izzy. Well, fine. Fucking fine. I’ll be there to pick up my stuff tomorrow night. I don’t work. I don’t know what to do to break a lease. I don’t think you really expected me to.”

Duff stood there for a few seconds, opening and closing his mouth, and then shook his head and left. Pearcy looked at Steven with renewed interest. “Damn, Adler,” he said. “Someone’s got some balls.”

* * *

Steven couldn’t wait for tomorrow night—he went over right after his shift, and most of his stuff was already on the lawn. He collected what was important, shoved it in a duffel bag (he briefly mourned the loss of his kit which was, mysteriously, not on the lawn, almost like Matt had stolen it like he’d stolen everything else in Steven’s life, though at least he could scrounge up some sticks), and started walking for Izzy’s.

Izzy was waiting for him with an old 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis. “We got kicked out,” Izzy said. “’cause of Bruno. You wanna see the world with me?”


End file.
